Kiyoshi Tamura vs Super Vader (UWFi - 6/10/1994)

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Super Vader (UWFi - 6/10/1994)
This has a shot. My review from the Tamura Complete & Accurate:
Vader offers a handshake to start but Tamura slaps the shit out of him. Big “Tamura Tamura!” chant from the crowd at the sound of the bell. Tamura is cautious to start throwing low kicks to keep Vader at a distance. Vader is completely shrugging the kicks off at the start but Tamura is moving around enough that Vader can’t quite close the gap. Finally Vader gets close enough and throws a big heavy right, Tamura gets his hands up to block it but does an awesome job stumbling backward to get over Vader’s incredible strength. Even if Tamura manages to block Vader’s strikes, they are creating enough force to knock Tamura around. So he’s got to continue to keep his distance. A few more leg kicks and Vader finally shows a sign that they might be having an effect. It isn’t over the top, but he picks up his leg and starts rubbing his thigh while continuing to stalk Tamura. The crowd notices and starts to buzz. Tamura notices and starts to unload with hard kicks to the thigh. But again Vader is able to knock Tamura away with a hard forearm (that Tamura blocked). Tamura does another great stumble sell of the blocked forearm. Tamura shoots in for a single leg takedown but can’t really do anything because of Vader’s size and Vader casually grabs the ropes anyway. Tamura is ahead on points! Another GREAT spot follows this up as Vader finally is able to corner Tamura. Vader starts to back him towards the turnbuckle while winding up and throws this wild haymaker but Tamura is able to duck out of the way and on his way to safety just blasts Vader with another hard kick to the thigh which Vader does an awesome job selling. Again though, Vader backs him into the corner and instead of going for Tamura’s head, he throws some big body blows, but Tamura fights back with one of my single favorite comebacks in wrestling history. Tamura just blasts Vader with rapid fire palmstrikes, some leg kicks and two jumping kicks to the face. Vader doesn’t go down but it is counted as a knockdown. Crowd is going nuts at this point. Tamura hits another hard leg kick and Vader is screaming in pain now. Tamura is able to take Vader down with leg kicks and manages to sink in a leglock leading to a Vader rope break. Massive “TAMURA TAMURA” chant as he continues to blast away at Vader’s leg. Vader starts throwing desperation haymakers and one of them finally manages to land for Vader’s first knockdown. Tamura continues to fight back just destroying Vader with more kicks, getting another knockdown and a leglock for another rope break! Crowd is molten. At this point, he’s had so much success that Tamura gets a little cocky. He seems to forget he’s wrestling motherfucking Super Vader and gets close enough to lock up with Vader. Vader seems surprised and is like “Oh wait, you’re near me. Let me crush your skull.” He puts Tamura down with some hard forearms to the head. Tamura manages another awesome kicking combination but Vader manages to catch him again with a forearm for a knockdown. Next Vader gets another knockdown when he picks Tamura up and just slams him. Vader follows up with some more punches and picks Tamura up again. Instead of slamming him, Vader literally throws Tamura over his head in an incredible spot. Tamura bumps but struggles to his feet knowing one more knockdown and Vader will win it. As Tamura is staggering to his feet, Vader walks over and powerbombs him for the win. Post match has Vader very insistent on going over and shaking Tamura’s hand and bowing to him.



This match. GAWD. Ok. There is so much I still want to hit. I think this match is worked absolutely perfectly and it is all so logical. Tamura looks like an absolute beast because he was able to hold his own so well against Vader. I hate to say that Tamura was controlling this match because everything he was doing was a reaction to the fact that he was in there with Vader. “Dominating” also seems like a weird choice also since Vader was able to beat Tamura relatively easily (in the sense that it didn’t take much offense from Vader to get the win). But I think that is where the brilliance of this match is. Tamura has never wrestled a match like this in his career. But he knows to wrestle Vader means to get in close and to get in close with Vader is to get crushed. So he works a match completely built around striking. He knows if Vader catches him, its over. And so Tamura spent the whole match trying to get away from Vader while Vader spent the whole match trying to catch Tamura. This could not have been worked better. Vader looks great in winning and Tamura looks great in losing. EPIC and a million billion stars.



One final thing about this match. This match felt like pro-wrestling as a horror movie. The opening moments with Tamura gaining the advantage is like the early happy parts of a horror movie. The first few Vader punch attempts didn’t do any real damage, but were enough to stagger Tamura. This really promotes an impending sense of doom. Like maybe the dog won’t stop barking and refuses to come inside the house or the kid suddenly has a new imaginary friend. “I’m going to pretend that was nothing, but that probably wasn’t nothing.” So once shit starts getting real everytime Vader is backing Tamura into the corner you’re holding your breath like “Oh this must be where the teenagers get murdered by the lake” and each time Tamura slips away you’re relieved because he was SO CLOSE. But you just know. Eventually. Those teenagers are getting murdered by the lake. For Godsake the movie is called Tamura vs Vader: Teenagers Murdered by the Lake. The post match routine with Vader shaking Tamura’s hand and showing him mad respect is like the post horror part of the horror movie. Maybe the one teenager who survived the lake massacre is off to college putting everything behind them now. Anyway. This was way too much about an 8minute long match. But it fucking rocks and anyone who hasn’t seen it should go watch it right now.